Airtable Sync integration: Google Drive

Setting up a sync from Google Drive to Airtable

1. Navigate to a base where you want to sync data into Airtable.

2. Add a new synced table by clicking the + Add or import button.

3. Scroll down to the “Add from other sources” section, click the xx more sources… button, and search for/select the Google Drive option.

4. Select an existing Google Drive account (if you’ve previously connected to the service), or link to a new account.

   If this is the first time you're connecting Airtable to a Google Drive account, we’ll ask your permission to see and download all of your Google Drive files. Select “Allow” to continue setting up the sync. For more information about authorization, security, and OAuth scopes jump to the section below.

5. Next, you will select the root folder that you would like to sync files from. You will first click the + Select from Google Drive option. This will open up another window where you can select the particular root folder to sync from. The root folder may be located in a personal drive ("My drive"), Shared drive, or a folder in the "Shared with me" drive.

6. After selecting your preferred root folder, you can then click whether you'd like to sync folders within the root folder:

   1. Checking this box means that folders within the root folder will sync as a record.

   2. Leaving this box unchecked means that subfolders contained within the root folder will not appear as records. Files within the root folder, as well as files within subfolders, will appear as records within Airtable.

   3. For thumbnail images, if a thumbnail exists, then Airtable will sync in that image. If you choose the "Sync Folders" option, we are unable to sync over the thumbnail for those folders at this time. Additionally, some file types like .dmg or .zip do not support thumbnails in the sync.

7. There is also an option to sync the content of the documents.

   1. The "Sync file content as attachment" defaults to Off, but it can be toggled to On.

      1. Files larger than 100MB will not have their content synced to the attachment field. The metadata for those files will still sync normally.

   2. If "Sync document content" is turned on, the Google Doc is downloaded as its corresponding standardized file type (docx, pptx, PDF, etc.), and uploaded to an attachment field in the same base.

8. After clicking Next, you’ll be presented with two sync options; you can sync:

   1. All fields from the source view (Google Drive), including any fields added by Google in the future.

   2. Specific fields from the source view (Google Drive).

      1. If you choose to sync specific fields you’ll be shown a menu where you can toggle each individual field that you want to sync from Google Drive.

      2. Visit this section for a list of all of the field data that is provided by Google Drive that can be synced to Airtable.

   Click the Next button after you have chosen which fields should be synced to Airtable.

9. Before creating your synced table, there are Settings options that allow you to choose how often you want to sync, and how to handle records deleted or hidden in Google Drive:

   1. Sync frequency - Right now, the options are manual syncing and automatic syncing which happens around every 5 minutes.

   2. Record retention/deletion - Whether or not deleted files/folders in the selected drive should be removed from the Airtable table. By default, deleted files/folders will be removed.

10. Once you’ve selected your desired sync settings, click the Create table button. Depending on how large the data set being synced in from Google Calendar is, it may take a few moments for the synced table to be created. The sync operation will retrieve all events in the calendar within the date range, and automatically create a calendar view to display the events.

    1. After the sync table is created, Airtable will automatically add an Open in Google Drive button field, which lets you navigate directly from any record to the corresponding file in Google Drive.

    2. A default gallery view is also created automatically, using the Thumbnail field as the cover image, so you can visually browse your synced Drive files right away.

Understanding field data that can be synced from Google Drive

When syncing from Google Drive, the following fields are available to bring into Airtable:

• File Path - Where the file is located within the selected Drive (e.g. subfolder/file name). Note: file paths are not guaranteed to be unique, since Google Drive allows multiple files with the same name in the same folder.

• Name - The name of the file

• Thumbnail - The thumbnail image generated or added to the file

• File Content - The file downloaded as its standardized file type (docx, pptx, PDF, etc.) as an attachment. Only available when "Sync file content as attachment" is enabled.

• Created - When the file was first created

• Last Viewed By Me - When you last viewed the file

• Last Modified - When the file was last modified

• Last Modified By - Who the file was last modified by

• File Owner(s) - A list of anyone with "owner" file permissions

• File Type - The file type (e.g. spreadsheet, form, slide, sheet, or doc)

• File Size (in bytes) - The file size in bytes

• Parent Folder - The folder that directly contains the file

• Link - A direct link to open the file in Google Drive

• File ID - The unique ID that Google generates for the file

Security and OAuth scopes

Authentication

For authentication purposes, Airtable requests the minimum read/write scopes necessary to make the Airtable Sync integration work.

Google Drive scopes:

The tokens are transmitted between Airtable and Google’s servers securely via HTTPS. On Airtable’s side, the tokens are stored in databases that are encrypted at-rest. For more information on Google Drive scopes, check out Google's documentation here.

FAQs